Archive for January 2009

A lot has been written and discussed about Slumdog Millionaire. Much like the Obama wave it seems engulfing us all.

From the day it was nominated for the Golden Globe there have been extreme views. So much so that a war seems waged between the for and the against. The criticism more or less seems to follow two schools of thought discussed below.

First one rues the exploitation of poor India for money by the west. More like the East India Company reloaded. Westerners have been accused to revel at the mockery of Indian poverty. As Arindam Chaudhary writes, “Slumdog is a phony poseur that has been made only to mock India for the viewing pleasure of the First World”. The naked poverty of India might be self pleasing to the people of the West, given the time of depression. According to Amitabh Bacchan such underbellies do exist even in the developed nations. This is just a Western production and hence the recognition. These people have launched an offense against the team of the movie, western media and finally the whole of the western world.

The other school of thought is pretty much the same as far as the murky portrayal of Mumbai is concerned. The difference lies in how they are affected. People are worried about the answers they would need to give and ridicule they would be subjected to when they travel abroad the next time. As Preity Zinta says, “Now for the next 10 years of my life every time I travel abroad, I will be told, Oh, you live in Mumbai…where they gouge out eyes in the slums.”

One point missing here is, Does anybody care about the poverty and feel for the slum dwellers? Or it’s just the poverty in limelight which is itching the eyes. At first the movie was applauded. Then the criticism followed. Then there was criticism of the people criticizing the movie. “Isn’t that (poverty and slums) a reality”, says Shahrukh Khan. It would not be long when there would be people who would criticize the people criticizing who criticized the movie. Now, how much of criticism would that be!

During the college farewell, a batch mate of mine asked, “So, where do you see yourself, 10 years from now?” I did what I do best, excuse myself with the sheepish smile. I never had to answer myself this question before. I mean I did schooling coz everybody do. There was no vision or so called planning that went into it. I went for JEE coz that’s what was “the hottest” at the given time. I opted for Computers for no other reason.

I remember a discussion with friends over dinner, “Why they opted for the particular engineering stream?” For most of them the criteria was Rank. I mean come ‘on, if 80 out of top 100 rankers (and more) are opting for Computer Science, that doesn’t mean all of them have such deep interest in it that they would have perished without it Or that the ones who didn’t get it were never interested in it. So let’s get one thing into perspective. What your interests are doesn’t matter during the cut throat competition in a developing world.

I took the job hoping to rise up the ladder along the normal path. As it was about to happen, the elastic snapped. The economic bubble burst and the condition of uncertainty in jobs might have led to the current thought process. Did I really want to be a software developer when I grew up? Was that my dream? If no then am I doing what I never wanted to, 5 days a week 9 hours a day, just to enjoy the weekends of my life. Has my life contracted to mere weekends?

This takes me back to the concept of civilized living. When was the concept of “work” proposed? Who proposed it? Why we followed it? We live on a spherical ball, don’t know where are we coming from, don’t know what’s inside the sphere, what’s outside the view. Just going on working through the week to enjoy the weekends. Working through our youth to enjoy the old age. Something doesn’t seem right. The concept seems flawed. It’s too mechanic, too un-human.

Maybe it’s this mechanics in our life that lead us to a peaceful timely death. Or the chaos would have had us much before.

You wake up in the morning expecting a fresh new day. Bright sunlight, marking the end of the past and a new path to the future. “Something doesn’t feel right”, you think. The head feels heavier than before followed by a flash of head ache. The nausea and the semi-vomit stage follows. You try to get the things into perspective. Where am I? Home, great! Where was I last night? Oh! Yes, I was dancing in the pub with friends. She dance real well…hmmm… A smile flashes across your face. Then the tough one! How did I get back home? No matter how hard you try, the answer doesn’t seem coming. The head spins faster. You rush to drink water. Had better done that last night after the party. Where is the lemon? Get me a Disprin. Let me try vomiting. How happy was I last night, dancing, partying, fooling around. Hangovers are really bad!

Obama! Obama! Obama! This man has been all over for a good two years now. Be it television, news papers or just the talk round the corner. It seems as if no one has anything better to do. Obama keeps a Hanuman with him, Obama lived in Pakistan, Obama has a brother in Africa. Obama this, Obama that. I am simply fed up.

Our national news channels have portrayed Obama as the savior of mankind. As if he is not just the President of United States but of the entire world. Everyone loves Obama talk, his vision, his speech and his charisma. Obama is being seen as once and for all solution to the problems of one and all. So much so that a kid in my locality is quite sure of getting good marks in exams this year now that Obama is the President of US. My colleagues at office, who till now were weary of the financial depression, are looking up. Its like, “Why fear when Obama is here”.

A news channel went as far as comparing Dhoni with Obama. Apparently they both share a desire to win, flamboyancy and a never say die attitude. It went further to comment that both Dhoni and Obama looked similar when in white clothes. It looks as if everyone is enjoying his own bit of Obama. There was a discussion that the “New Leader”, predicted by Nostradamus, has arrived in the name of Obama. I have had it from this Nostradamus guy. Every year the book fattens. Can somebody please decipher what he predicted earlier than when it actually happens?

I sincerely hope, now that he has become the President, he would be busier in running the nation and we would be spared, him all the time on television. I read his book, “The Audacity of Hope”. Regardless of my being fed up with his face, I really liked the guy. I mean it really require some guts to joke about the rhyming of one’s name with Osama. He himself writes that people considered his political career all but over when the two planes crashed into the twin towers. Let me add something to all the hoopla surrounding Obama. I really admired the honesty in his writings, just like the one which was found in My Experiments with Truth and one which seemed missing in the recent writings from senior political leaders.

During the ongoing ODI series involving Aussies and SA, I was really confused seeing Johan Botha. Where did he come from? How did I miss him earlier? Why have I never heard about him as a player? I scanned my brain for some match winning performance, some feat. Nothing! I cricinfoed his profile to find more about him. Nothing! Tried google. Nothing!

One can easily remember the name of South African spinners, simply coz there haven’t been many. Pat Symcox, Nicky Boje, Paul Adams and the most recent Paul Harris. Where did I miss Botha. Not just the lone spinner but the captain too! A recent article in this regard presented an interesting view. Botha was chosen to bring inspiration to the team in Smith’s absence. What inspiration was the author taking about? Apparently he had been called for his bowling action in the past. The way he handled the situation and came back to the team would prove inspirational and what the players could look up to.

Great! Now players like Kallis, Gibbs, Boucher, Amla would look up to an ex-chucker for inspiration! This is not even a reason. So why was he made captain? A captain, who is not even a selection in the Test team.

Selectors might be repeating their Experiment Smith. They threw in Smith very early into captaincy and look how well he fared. Maybe that’s the thought. Again, Smith averaged 55 in whatever few Tests he had played by then. Botha’s batting avg of 18 and bowling average of 40 don’t even come close. A couple of failures and he would be running from pillar to post for his place in the team, leave aside captaincy.

There should be something more to it. Given Smith’s envious record as a captain and as a player, South African cricket board might be looking just for a stop gap arrangement. Who the captain is as the filler don’t even matter. Again, why Botha?

We might want to have a look around. Marred by power struggles within the team, cricket round the world has suffered a lot. England, West Indies, Pakistan, India. All. SA has been insulated from it for a while now, barring a few hiccups. Selectors might not want to create poles within the team by giving a senior member the captaincy, who might be reluctant to relinquish it later. Look what happened to England post Ashes ’05. Why not select a younger player who is not even sure of his place. Keep him the captain for a series or two, till Smith is back. He can even be disposed off easily, if the plan backfires. This would keep Smith the sole power center within the team. Thus, tactfully avoiding ego clashes among the senior players.

Selectors might be giving an excuse of grooming the captain for the future. Our worry is, Mr. Botha might even not have one as a player!

Last night a breaking news simultaneously bombarded across all the News Channels. “Akshay refused to accept the Star Screen award for the best actor in popular category”. It was said that he was miffed at it not being given to Aamir. Here’s the catch. Aamir don’t attend such award ceremonies as a policy. Would announcing Aamir the winner take the sheen away from the ceremony, given his absence? To some extend, yes. Now what can Star Screen do? I recollect similar dilemma during the time of Gadar and Lagaan. Their resounding success was of so sheer velocity that no award ceremony dare give it to some other movie or some other star. Since Sunny and Aamir both boycott these populist awards, what happened? The award functions looked pale and just a formality. This brings us to the current discussion, Was Star Screen right in not giving award to the deserving, Aamir? Well, answer might not be as simple.

One solution might be to stop nominating them. Make it a policy statement. In the past a lot many award functions have done so, including Oscars. This might in turn end up lending them, a much needed credibility.

So why haven’t they done it already? Most of the award functions are organized by private media houses who need the stars for promotional purposes. Consider a scenario, “Aamir Khan not been considered for Star Screen awards”. Given the size of egos in Bollywood, Aamir (or his well wishers), might take it as an insult. This would open the floodgates, open war b/w camps (already there are no less). No media house wants to end up at the point of no return. So they try and maintain cordial relations. Not attending the award lends the star, a high moral ground. Not being openly considered might be taken as an outright insult. The truth today is that stars such as Aamir are more powerful than any particular media house. Hence they are nominated year after year, should they ever change their mind.